Turkish Delights

In December 2007, Yasemin Patton and her husband, Jacques, bought Istanbul, a Mediterranean grocery store in the Near West End. This past fall, Yasemin turned the market into a quaint, cozy restaurant specializing in Turkish cuisine. Yasemin enjoys cooking the foods she grew up with in her homeland of Turkey (where she met and married Jacques, an Army officer, in the early 1990s). "Everyone always told me I should have a restaurant," she says. In June, Jacques was deployed to Korea, and Yasemin's been running the family business with the help of their two teenaged daughters, Maryam and Elif (Jacques is scheduled to return home next month). Native favorites such as kebabs and eggplant dishes grace the menu, and homemade bread pairs perfectly with the acili ezme, a spread of finely chopped red and green peppers, walnuts, and spices such as paprika and garlic. Here, Yasemin shares a recipe for biber dolmas, or stuffed peppers. For more information, call 741-5761.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups of chopped onions

1 can (14.5 ounces) of diced tomatoes or 3 large fresh tomatoes, diced

1 tablespoon of tomato paste

5 garlic cloves, crushed

1 teaspoon of salt

1 bunch of parsley, finely chopped

1 tablespoon of dry or fresh dill

8 Cubanelle peppers (you can also sub in some yellow or red peppers if you'd like)

Mix all the ingredients except the Cubanelle peppers, water, tomato sauce, olive oil and 1 tablespoon of ground black pepper. Stuff the peppers tightly with the resulting mixture. Place them in a deep pot with a cover. Then, mix the water, sauce, olive oil and 1 tablespoon of ground black pepper. Pour this over the peppers, bring to a boil and simmer for an hour. Optional: Serve with garlic yogurt on top of the peppers.